Sunday, January 15, 2017

Next weekend is the first big test for those of us dedicated
to fighting the Twittering Twit the GOP is installing at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. You don’t have to travel to or live in DC to partake, there are marches planned
all across the county. SHOW UP. Numbers matter. Seriously, SHOW UP. We have an
opportunity to turn coverage away from pomp and circumstance and back to the
issues that actually matter. Trump is an existential threat to our Democracy. Don’t run
to the beach or the mountains or hide in your house binge watching some TV
series. SHOW UP. If you don’t feel comfortable marching, think of it this way:
how comfortable is a 17 year old Mexican girl whose parents brought her over to
the US at age 2, and who recently discovered she isn’t a citizen?

SHOW UP.

Ten years from now, when your children ask what you did to stop Trump, do you
really want to say “nothing”?

SHOW UP.

As a veteran of a lot of marches, I offer a few humble suggestions on how to
ruckus right.

1) Signs
and posters should be painted on BOTH SIDES. One of the more amusing
things in DC is to see a rally or protest from afar, and approaching from the
rear, you gaze upon a sea of blank poster board because the slogans are only on
one side. Paint your slogan on BOTH sides of your poster board.

2) Don’t
use a stick as a base for your poster. In some areas, sticks won’t be
permitted.

3) Wear comfortable shoes. Marches aren’t
fashion shows and you’ll be on your feet for a long time, especially if you are
attending the events in DC.

4) Stay engaged: Chant and make noise,
and take your nose out of your IPhone.

5) Remember
your audience. This isn’t just for us, we need to send a strong message
to Team GOP and the press. The paramount message is that the
Republicans are NOT the team that stands for Family Values; the press
has given them a pass on this point for far, far too many years. Family Values
Presidents don’t grab women by the pussy and they don’t call all Mexicans
rapists and they don’t blow off critical national security briefings. It’s time
to take that phrase “Family Values” back. Many in the GOP are worried about
Trump, even if they’ll never admit it publicly, at least not yet. They are
beginning to see the size of the moral abyss they just elected. Calling them
out will get us noticed.

If you are interviewed by the media, draw a distinction between the GOP and
actual morality. The question they’ll ask is almost always the same:

Q: “Why are you out here today?”

A: " I have grown tired of being told the
GOP stands for family values. Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans don’t
support family values. They don’t. Trump is a disgusting ill-informed racist,
sexist pig and Congressional Republicans need to call him out on his outrageous
behavior.”

6) Chant and sign suggestions. The press delight in the ironic chant; try some of these “best
of the Anti-Trump movement” signs and
slogans below. If you have other suggestions (we need all the slogans we can
get, it’s going to be a long day) put them in a comment.

For the family values message:

GOP, NOT FOR ME, ANTI-CHRISTIAN FILTH.
FAMILY VALUES YES. THE GOP, NO.
DONALD TRUMP IS A RACIST CHUMP

HATE IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE
DUMP TRUMP, RACIST CHUMP

DUMP TRUMP, SEXIST CHUMP
LOVE NOT HATE MAKES AMERCIA GREAT

JOHN LEWIS IS MY HERO; TRUMP IS JUST A RACIST ZERONO TRUMP, NO KKK, NO FASCIST USA

And don’t forget
Russia….

DONALD TRUMP IS PUTIN’S CHUMP
THE GOP, THE GOP, WHOLLY OWNED BY THE KGB

And the wall….

CAN’T BUILD A WALL, HANDS ARE TOO SMALL

BUILD A WALL AROUND TRUMP, I’LL PAY

Or the hair…

WE SHALL OVERCOMB

THERE WILL BE HELL TOUPEE

Or Twitter…

IMPEACH THE TWITTERING TWIT

Or the aggressive
sexism…

MAKE MYSOGYNY GREAT AGAIN

Or the immigrants,
with maybe a nod to Boradway's Hamilton:

IMMIGRANTS: WE GET THE JOB DONE

Have more ideas? Post them in the comments. And happy ruckusing. We should remember that Martin Luther King, Jr. had to march down a lot more dangerous roads than what is required of us. SHOW UP, Let's get the job done.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

My road to data driven politics was long and winding. I
hearken from a classical music background. Conservatory training brings with it
a natural “glass half empty” attitude I find helpful in the political dodge. Serious
musicians spend a lot of time alone, in a practice room, constantly evaluating
their playing and making changes and improvements. If you aren’t your own harshest, most
iconoclastic critic, you will never succeed. This isn’t considered noble or out
of the ordinary for a serious classical or jazz musician. No one has ever become a better musician
practicing what they already know. You identify and attack bad habits and drill
and listen to hone your skills.

And you do it 4 or 5 hours every dang day.

For those of us in the progressive space, the musician offers helpful lessons. Let’s make 2017 a
musician’s year. First, let’s all be hard on ourselves. I’m seeing a bit of the
blame game on the Internet of late. The left is blaming the center, state
players are blaming their national organizations, folks who don’t understand
data are waxing Luddite and blaming the “white coated statisticians.” Vendors
are blaming the campaign. Folks who didn’t spend one millisecond helping out a
campaign with their dollars or their time are kvetching as if they have all the
answers.

Screw all that. Seriously.

We just fought a long, hard campaign and we not only lost, we put a
dangerous, anti-intellectual, racist, sexist, megalomaniacal butthead in the
White House. All of us bring some blame to the
table. EVERYONE. No exceptions.

Sure, it hurts to realize that not all of those midnight data pulls on
Saturday, the weeknight wee hour sessions, or the daily grind for months failed to move enough votes on election night. So, we need to do better. And we need to be tough on ourselves this year,
the very Republic is at stake. But I’m not shedding tears. It’s just time to re-evaluate
and get back in the practice room.First, we need to get out of our silos; yes, we need to do the work we do in
our niches to pay the mortgage and keep our pups in kibble, but we need to be
far more flexible.Did the big data folks oversell their
usefulness? YESDid we ignore turnout indicators on the other team (turnout after
all is relative)? YESDid the field become too obsessed with the base, all the while ignoring persuasion:
YES

And even if you don’t work in politics, you aren’t off the hook here:Did the political left become solipsistic and smug, utterly unwilling to accept
that a huge chunk of the electorate DOESN’T always see the world through their
eyes? YES

Did too many folks think this election was a done deal and sit on their hands? YESAre too many of the folks reading this guilty of kvetching about the state of
America (on and off line), all the while donating no money to the cause, refusing to find the
time to knock on doors or make phone calls? YES

Let’s
all take a day or two, or even a week, and look at our own failings. No one is
guilt free. Don’t blame others, that won’t make you a better player, a more
refined politico capable of the adroitness of a fine violinist or jazz
improviser. BLAME YOURSELF. All of us, every last one, made mistakes. It’s not
self-flagellation. It’s the only way out of the pit we’ve dug. No musician ever
improved blaming the conductor, or the Oboists poor “tuning note” or the humid
weather that caused their tone quality to suffer. They look within, they
evaluate, they criticize themselves, and only then do they grow.

And that’s what we need to do tonight and moving forward.

Stay tuned both here and on the Democratic Daily, I'll be offering a lot of actions, sample letters to elected officials and things to do to fight Donald the Tweeting Twit Trump.

So, let’s get busy, Let’s get in that practice room, and let’s get to work.